Peace Is The Highest Happiness

Peace Is The Highest Happiness | Ajahn Brahm

Transcription

One of these days, we could have to go to pick a hole. Although I've got to give much worse talks. I wanted to say. Okay, most people have found their way in, and so people can come in at any old time. Because I always say that religious people, especially monks, should be the hardest people to offend. It's always very peaceful and happy no matter what. And that's led to the subject of this evening's talk. We wanted to make the difference between happiness and peace. So, no, our goals in life were we're aiming for. And in this talk, by making a difference between what happiness means and what pieces, you can make your choice, what you wished for. I think you'll find, I hope, if I make the case, uh, according to as it should be made, that peace is the highest happiness. That's the same which I heard in the monasteries in Thailand when I was a young monk, that peace is the highest happiness. What we mean by that. I don't know. These days. I was travelling again, going over to Sydney last weekend, giving some talks and at the airport just because the plane was delayed as usual. I get used to this, but you get there in the end. I'm looking in the bookshop and there's a lot of books in the self-help section on happiness, and it's almost like an industry now. Some of the magazines say, and when I was in Sydney last October at a conference, there's even like Happiness Institutes where the the manager or the boss he calls himself, not the CEO, the CHOGM, the chief happiness officer and crazy, so much so that happiness becomes like a commodity which especially a new age or religious organisation, we promote as an important thing, which, if you like, that we provide in places like this. But as many other commentators have pointed out, that sometimes that creates a lot of stress in people's lives. They make themselves sick trying to be so damn happy, and they get very disappointed when they're not. Sir, we have to be careful here to understand what we're actually aiming for, you know, in life. You know, it's a really happiness which we really want. Or is that sometimes a little bit off the mark? And there's something different. Wish we wish we should go for. Because look about it. You know your life. I mean, what do people do know when they aim for their goals in life? They want to become wealthy because the thing once they're wealthy, they're going to be happy, find a nice partner, and then you'll be happy, sort of be able to retire when you're 50. Then you'll be happy. And you all know I retired when I was 23. That's really smart. But then they say, well, you've got no superannuation. Who needs superannuation when you've got meditation? I call it super meditation, but you'll keep it, which will keep you happy. And you can. An inexhaustible supply of spiritual cash to keep you happy and at peace for the rest of your life. But even more than that, because superannuation only only last to your death. But the peace and happiness of super meditation that lasts beyond your death. And no, no treasure of this country can take that away from you. But anyway, going back to sort of happiness, what is the happiness which people find in life? A lot of times people say maybe the the best part of happiness is like falling in love. Have you ever felt him falling in love? How many times do you fall in love? Do you ever notice when you fall in love? You have to fall out of love again. This is called, you know, impermanence. Rise and fall. It always happens. That's why one of my favorite sayings, my favorite sayings I read is about six months ago. Because you know my favorite sayings? They're just a twist on the normal saying. And that's why I love these. It's better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all. Because they usually say because it's nothing. Shakespeare, if I'm not mistaken, it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. But now love is easy to love. But how about losing? It's better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all. Because you know what happens when people are with us so they haven't gone understanding what real life truly is. Sometimes when everything goes well in your life, you haven't got much wisdom and you don't know what peace truly is. You get an illusion that this life is a wonderful place, and you can control it and make it be whatever you like. That's the trouble of successful people. They were there in the illusion that they have created their success and they think, wow, what a great person I am. And everyone else are losers. Has anyone else ever called you a loser? Please call me a loser because I love losing. Its much more fun losing. That's why I say to people when they their kids, because sometimes you have these youths who come to our youth groups. They say look you when you pass, when you have your examinations. You know, it's great to fail your examinations because if you don't fail examinations and you pass, you have to take another one next year, and you have to keep on doing exam until you eventually you do lose. You do do fail and then you can actually stop. If only I'd known that when I was young because, you know, I had to do a O-levels and you passed those who didn't do A-levels and you had to university. And then if you want to do postgraduate Ma and stuff, gee, it was wonderful. If I only learnt how to fail early on in my life, I could have been a much more peaceful person. Do you know what I mean? We. Sometimes we're so afraid of failure that we don't know how to fail. And that creates a huge amount of personal pressure, a lack of self-esteem, a feeling of inadequacy, a feeling of of being judged by other people. And I think it's great to learn from that, because you learn much more from the failures in life than you ever do. Maybe I said the other way around. I think a few weeks ago from actually winning. So that's why I think it's great to be a loser. Look at me. I've lost everything. I used to have these great degrees, and I've lost them. You know what I did with those degrees when I went first, went home to visit my mother, and she had them, my ba, my ma. And I said, I'm a monk. I don't need these. I tore them up and threw them in the dustbin. And I thought that was a wonderful thing to do. Until an hour later, I saw my mother patiently taping them together with her safe on the kitchen table. I felt terrible when I saw that. I realized they weren't my degrees. They were hers because her son, she was proud of me. But for me, it was okay to lose these things. And then, you know, you lose. You know, your girlfriends. I'll tell you, it's great to lose your girlfriends. You're free. You can go wherever you want, do whatever you want. Oh, there's your boyfriends, Gwen. You got the boyfriend. And what happens? You know, you've got some work so hard to please him and put on the makeup up and dress up and be nice and be. Oh, just a waste of time. Just think how you're free when you lose things about losing your wealth like I did. You know, give it all up. It's amazing. The less you have, the more free you feel. People think it's the other way around, the more you have to, so the more control you have in life. But that's the delusion. You're not in control. You should know that very early on in life. So the more you let go, the more freedom you have. The more you lose, the more peaceful you are. Eventually I have to lose anyway. I mean, most of you here. Look around you. You know you've lost your youth already. Come on, admit it. Where did that go? See all losers. Maybe, as I said, that babe in the back. Okay. You're still young, but. Maybe you lost your good looks. It's such a struggle to make yourself look good anymore. And if you lost your agility. I saw you walking in here. Struggling as you're losing your health. You're losing your vigor. Isn't that a wonderful thing to do? Because, you know, being. Being an adolescence, you know, with so much pressure and struggle on your kids especially, you know, having to look beautiful and having to be smart. You know, you remember what it felt like to be like that. That's one of the old jokes I've put this one in here about when you're in your 20s, when you're in your 20s, you know, you have to dress up, you have to be smart, you have to have street cred or whatever they call it. You're so worried what other people think of you when you're in your 20s. That's why you have to have your image. You have to makeup, you have to wear good clothes. But when you're in your 40s. Then you get self-confidence. You couldn't give a damn what other people think of you. Just do it. When you're in your 60s, you finally find out that people weren't thinking about you anyway. If you could only learn that from the beginning, then you have much more freedom of worrying about what other people think of you. Which actually creates a lot of problems. Psychological problems for people always trying to gain acceptance, respect from other people. They're mostly thinking about themselves, not you. I'm being truthful here. So anyway, it's great being a loser. Being a loser. I've lost all of my power to do things. I can't have sex. I can't go to the movies. I know so many things I can't do. I've lost my freedom being a monk. I have such a wonderful time. And eventually lose your health. Eventually lose your life. You die. So in the end, we're all losers. But I say, what's wrong with being losers? I'm starting a new organization. Losers writes equity for losers. Don't discriminate against losers and start a losers society. But what I was saying over here is that sometimes we can look at things in a different way and get far more wisdom out of these things, because if we don't know what it's like to fail to lose, to be disappointed, we never get any wisdom about what life truly is. When things go well for you in life and are used to seeing that life is just happiness. But that's not what life truly is. Life is what goes wrong. That's the real life. And sooner or later, the hamster, each one of us, sooner or later, we come across situations which are just so painful and hard to bear. So it seems at first situation which are desperate when this our children run away and misbehave and get on drugs. Whether we've got a person at work who's a bully, whether we got diseases inside our body which is causing us great pain, whether we're losing our business, someone is cheating us. Whether it's our partner is cheating on us. There are times in life when everything goes all wrong big time. When you lose, what do most people do? It's incredible just how so many people react to the losses of life with a sense of guilt, the sense that it's their fault, that they have somehow done something wrong to deserve that pain. Sometimes we take responsibility for the wrong things in life. Really, what's happening here? This is life. This is what life actually is. Always has been this way, always will be this way. And it's nothing wrong with you. That's why we have therapy groups. Therapy groups who just have people who are experiencing similar traumas, and they come together and they talk to each other. And then we recognize in somebody else's pain, our own pain, their situation, my situation, we feel the same. We feel that we're not alone. But it's more than not being alone in our pain, in our grief, in our troubles. So just this afternoon, I was at a grief conference cracking jokes. I love cracking jokes at grief conferences. Good grief. He just hated all around. But when these things happen, we have these groups which come together because when we actually listen to other people going through exactly what we are going through. One of the great advantages of that. It means that there's nothing wrong with us. This is normal. This is par for the course. It happens to us as it happens to me. We realize this is life, that cancer groups, that cancer is part of life. It's not a mistake, but something is terrible has gone wrong. We understand just how to accept life instead of fighting life, which is what losing is all about. The message of losing. The purpose of it is understand that we're not in control. We didn't lose. He says life is part is like this. Sometimes we win. Sometimes we lose part of life. I sometimes read in the back page of the newspaper all these sports, and I mention this about losing because apparently the West Coast Eagles and the Fremantle Dockers has somewhere in the bottom of the league. It's wonderful that they like that because because I'm adapting a story in my book, because we have something in Buddhism. And there's a very important concept in Buddhism of the bodhisattva. You know what a bodhisattva is. It's a person who sacrifices their own happiness for the sake of other beings. Someone is so compassionate that they will take the bottom place of the ladder, so all the other teams won't have to experience the same suffering as they're taking. So I think the West Coast Eagles and the Fremantle Dockers this year are the most compassionate teams. They are truly Buddhist by letting the other people win because that's what makes them happy. While the Fremantle Dockers and the West Coast Eagles can be just so peaceful and kind and gentle, if the other team one team wants a ball, you can have it. So true Buddhist. I think my teachings are finally got into. Subiaco Oval. Which is? Which is where those teams play in Perth. They're getting right out to the point. We learned something from the losing streaks of life and the pain and disappointments of life, even though sometimes, you know, the young kids, they come out to me because I know some of these kids now, they've grown up with me. I'm almost like their uncle. And they tell me things they never tell their parents, and I won't tell their parents either. It's in confidence, you know, all their sort of social life and what goes on. Every now and again. The kid comes out and said, they've broken their heart. You know what it's like? They're 16, 17, 18 year old or 20 year old the first time they've had a beautiful love affair. And it doesn't work out. And they go cry and they tell them, look, now, if you don't know what pain is. No, I mean, talking about not physical pain like a toothache, but, you know, pain in the heart, a great disappointment where all your life falls apart. How you ever learned to know what love is. If you don't know the opposite. If you don't know light, you can never know dark. If you don't know. So the pain of the heart. You never know. The choice of the heart. You don't know what peace is if you don't know what agitation is. So when I tell them how to say there is a purpose to all these things, to pain in life, it's learning about what real love is, what real pieces, those disappointments. And one of the things, because there's a lot of psychologists which I know of in Sydney and over here as well know Buddhism is really actually pushing along psychology and our modern world. So much so there's no Australian Association of Buddhist Counselors and so psychotherapists, which I belong to, not because I'm a psychologist or a psychotherapist, because I'm a Buddhist and in Australia. But you help a lot of these people. And I remember just the last time I gave a talk at their conference. They were talking about the pain, which like a counselor or a doctor or psychotherapist or any nurse or any sort of person who is in that caring profession, has, when they come across somebody who cannot be cured, who's got a disease or a sickness which actually resists all treatment, or they just don't allow the treatment. And he said, there's nothing more sort of painful sometimes for them than seeing someone who they can't help. And they asked me, you know, as a monk, as a teacher, what would you do in that situation where there's a person who's in a psychological, psychological mess, a painful physical mess because of some disease or in an emotional mess, and they refuse or they just cannot be helped. My answer was, no, that's not correct. That they cannot be helped. They cannot be cured. In other words, you can't take them into some idea of physical health. But they can always be cared for. And there's a huge difference there between taking a person and getting rid of their cancer, and getting them to some idea of good health, or getting a person with an emotional distress and getting them back to a what we call a normal state of affairs. That's called healing. There's another thing which is called caring, which even though you cannot change what they are, you can just accept who they are. You can care for them. And to tell them, as I say in my book, the door of my heart is open to you, even though you are like this. It's a beautiful thing to do because if you can separate out caring from healing, loving from changing, you have a huge amount of wisdom and another resource to use in times. When you see someone in great pain, stress, difficulty and you feel impotent. You do not need to feel impotent. There's always something you can do not to change them, but to care for them. When you know how to do that, food is a huge amount which we can do for the difficulties of life. But some of the troubles with our problems in life, we always want to change it and make it different. And sometimes when we want to change or make a difference, we really desperately want to heal that person. Too often we make it worse to understand what we mean by adding between happiness and peace. Sometimes we have to allow unhappiness to be and not to make everything nice and rosy, wonderful and great and brilliant and solve all the problems in the world. Because there's some problems in the world which just will not be solved. What can you do about this? One of the great stories, which I read a long time ago, and it's one of the great little philosophical stories in that book, opened the door of your heart. And I mentioned this many times because it is powerful. And it's just sometimes you read these things like, wow, this really is deep, and it changes much of the way in which I deal with life. This is practical wisdom, but tell it in the story, make it a little bit funny and you remember it. It's the story of the British ex-Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, who had retired from office, but he was an elder statesman, and he was interviewed by the newspapers. In 1967 during the Six-Day War between Israel against Egypt, Syria, Jordan, who else? Lebanon? Everything. Every country around Israel was fighting in the Six-Day War. And he was asked, what do you think about the problem in the Middle East? Newspaper interview this great British statesman? Without missing a beat. This ex-prime Minister of Britain replied sir, there is no problem in the Middle East. To which the reporter was stunned and responded what do you mean? There is no problem in the Middle East? Is a war going on? You know, bullets, tank shells. People are dying. What do you mean? There's no problem in the Middle East. Quite calmly, this elder statesman said, sir, a problem is something with a solution. There is no solution in the Middle East. Therefore it's not a problem. Now, that's a brilliant saying, because there are many things in life with no solutions, at least no solutions apparent right now. And too many people waste a lot of their energy and time. And they get themselves sick worrying about things which they cannot change in this moment. Understandably so, because some of these things, you know, your children getting into drugs, running away, wife playing around, husband sort of losing all their money down the casino or whatever it is going on. These are real problems. So what can you do about them? Sometimes we have to understand that some of these problems, we look at them because some you can do great, do something, but this is nothing you can do. It's not a problem. It's out of control. So all you can do is to let go and be a loser. Be at peace with realizing this world is often beyond your control. But what you can always do is care for yourself and others. Sometimes you can't heal the problem. You can't fix it up. He can know his care. Allow it to be. Rest. Conserve your energies. Keep your powder dry. As I used to say. And don't shoot when the enemy is out of range. What that really means is that when there's nothing to do, you don't drive yourself crazy by losing sleep. Worrying. Why is it that people just cannot wait in this these situations? Too often when it's a huge problem, we just get frantic. We think, think, think, think. Why worry, worry, worry instead of knowing? There are some things which we just cannot solve. You have to let it go. Wait until things change. And I'm going to tell the story about the the soldier in the middle of the Burmese drama. We can read that in that book, but the essence of that is life. The one thing you always know that things do change. People aren't always the same. Relationships. They ebb and flow. And life is always in flux. So when there is not a solution right now, it's not a problem. And a lot of times our difficulty, our thing is we don't know how to let things go and wait for an appropriate time to act. Just leave it for a while. Rest. So there's not a problem. There's nothing to do. The best thing to do is to do nothing. In other words, make peace. Sometimes people only can make peace when everything is perfect. When all your problems are solved. When the world is okay. And when your finances is all fixed. Your family life is all sweet. When your health is top range. And then we can be at peace. And our human being condition is always. We work so hard trying to get to that magic place where everything is okay so we can rest, though we never reach that point. Swire. The only time you find people resting in peace. Where is that? You're now in the cemetery. In our society, R.I.P. only reply applies to dead people and I rebelled against that. I want to rest in peace when I'm still in love, while I can still enjoy it. So how can you rest in peace in this life? The only way you can ever find peace is within imperfection. Because if you try for perfection, you never reach it. And you'll never find any peace at all in your life. So never think or never way to say. But all my problems are solved. You know when I've saved up enough money to retire. You know when my legal problems are all fixed. You know, when my children come back home, you know, when my wife, you know, says sorry, she should have died years ago. Whatever else, she is worrying you. Never, ever think that that is the only time you can find peace. One of the great teachings of the Buddha. What I learned for many years, is how you can find peace in the most unlikely of places, amidst turmoil, amid sickness. When everything is going wrong, you can't find happiness. But my goodness, you can always find peace. At any time. You can find this wonderful sense of acceptance when you can sit down, rest, and not try so damn hard to change the world. Let it be. This is why there are some occasions in your life where you have these glimpses of peace, and that is so important to understand as an experience, not as a theory of what peace really is, how it's made and how beautiful it is, and how it's almost your birthright as human beings to discover that peace and learn how to rest in it and understand that even though the world may be just going completely bizarre and berserk and crazy, and you can find peace in any moment with any place. I still remember as a kid growing up in in England, sometimes in those busy streets, those busy cities are so noisy. I used to go into churches even though I wasn't a Christian. I was still going to the church to sit because it was a quiet place. Especially those great cathedrals. I would love those cathedrals, not because of their architecture. I wasn't looking at the walls or the rafters. Know what I was looking at was the space. What was between those walls? Not all the ornaments which was decorating, you know, the, the, this, the shrine. I was looking at just the silence which was enclosed in those huge buildings. That's what really meant something to me, because they were huge. Those cathedrals, the biggest buildings you'd ever seen before. You had this huge banks and and shopping malls. But the wonderful thing about those cathedrals, you go inside and the noise of the traffic and the scurry of the people outside would never penetrate through those thick stone walls. Inside was silent. It was an oasis of peace in the turmoil of a major city. For me, that was a symbol. That was his spiritual heart. Why they were there. A place of peace amidst this crazy imperfection of a modern city. But you know, the last time I went into a cathedral was into Westminster Abbey. And I was how my heart sank. Because instead of having the peace in those great churches and cathedrals, whoever was in charge. Stupid, I called them. They installed a PA system. And there was this a sermon going on 24 hours a day. Pop music or announcements or sermons, and you can find no peace, even though once even over in, uh, the airports, even in Perth Airport, you know, there is supposed to be a meditation room, like a prayer room. I remember going there was so great I could meditate instead of just hanging out in some lounge waiting for the aircraft to go. So I thought, great, I can go and find this quiet place to meditate. And I sat down there. Here is a security announcement. Please do not leave the bags unattended in the airport. We're paging from passenger so-and-so. Flight 4672 is about to leave. And as all his announcements in the prayer room and I thought, gee, at least I can have one place with a bit of peace and quiet in an airport. But no way. And one of our problems in modern society is that it's so hard to find places of peace. Places of silence. And when you find those places, they're magic. How many have you been in the bush? Hundreds of miles from anywhere so distant from the nearest human being. As if the world has stopped. Maybe you don't have to go into the bush. Monastery down at Serpentine or Tarbosaurus. Sometimes if you go at night. But there's not many people around. That is really calm. I don't know how many people, just even today. Somebody came up and said they just love coming there not to see the monks, all to listen to or to feed the monks or listen to any Dhamma, just to feel the peace. It's such a valuable thing. And I was telling them the story that. Oh. Well, how many years ago? 27 years ago? Just figuring it out. 27 years ago, after becoming a monk, seven years in Thailand, I went to visit my family for the first time over in London. Just had a monastery, just freshly brought in Sussex where I stayed, only been established for a year and still is so much building. It was a mess. No, no heating was there and that was a very, very cold winter that night, -26°C. We saw in the newspapers afterwards with the headlines. This is British newspapers. Even the beer froze very, very high quality newspapers in England. Nothing about the state of the world or people starving or wars going on headlines. Even the beer froze. So much for culture. But I remember just getting up early in the morning because I was an early riser. I was trained that way, and just going out and walking in the forest was so cold. I was wrapped up. It was so cold that nothing was moving. All the animals were in hibernation, and only crazy monks would get up at that time in the morning and actually walk in the snow. And that was amazing. I'll never forget that experience because no one else was around in that forest. The snow had fallen overnight. There were no tracks of human or animal and nothing stirred. There was no wind, so no leaf would rustle. No bush would move. When I stopped, the whole world stuck with me. It was so quiet, so peaceful. And then that was where I coined the word the sacred silence, because there was something I wouldn't call it moving because that's the wrong word. It's the opposite of moving. So I was just grounded you and put you inwards. And that silence was so, so beautiful. You just never wanted to disturb it once you got there. It was like a homecoming. It's like where you belonged. Where even in the difficulties of the world, you found this amazing place. What our Changsha would call your real home of peace and silence. Always there when things stop moving. Peace at last. And that was so different than happiness. Happiness is what you create. What you make happen. Because then you rejoice in it. Yeah, you won the lotto. You pick the right numbers. Now you've worked hard and got the bonus. You've got, uh, an advancement in your career, and now you've. Your kids have managed to pass it to you and go to university. You've got your degree, your footy team has won. Whatever it is, the happiness of the world and all from doing something. And this peace, it's like it's always there. Always avoided. So is there when you stop moving and you stop doing things. Oh my goodness. That's incredibly powerful experience and you don't have to make it happen. You don't have to search for it. It's not somewhere else. It's right here in this moment. And when people find that peace, it's probably the best medicine in the world. Anyone who knows how to access a beautiful stillness knows how to have a healthy, happy, peaceful body. It's like your place of rest. When you can go into the peace at any time, even in the midst of turmoil and imperfection. We rest there for a while. Not for always. People make the mistakes of Buddhists. Yeah, they could sit meditation, watch their navel. A bloody good use for everybody else. That's not true. You rest in peace. Yeah. You get into deep meditations so you can be so much more effective to help the world afterwards. This is your energy source, your power source, the place where you not only get your energy, your wisdom, your clarity, and your power. In the peace and stillness of the world, in your heart, anywhere. So when people understand what peace is and what happiness is, and you compare the two. What do you want? And the peace does come from losing things. When you're losing all movement or wanting all criticism, all judgements, you're losing all of that which drives your life when you're allowing this moment to be. You're not changing the world for your being at one with the world with all its faults. You just stay in that moment for a while. You stay in peace, and you'll never find that peace anywhere else than in the imperfections of ordinary daily life. In the forest, which is cold in the bush, in the monastery, in the church. What was in your bedroom when you did? Stop for a while? Let go and allow things to cease. But I happened to get this incredible piece, this ground of your being, if you like. When you know that peace, you rest in it for a while. It gives perspective for what you do in life. It is like a real home, a place where you go to rest, recharge your energies. See a meaning in life, and then you go out from that peace to go work your butt off, to serve the world, to care for the world. Not always to heal it. Because sometimes you know that healing the world is an endless, endless job. You go and help somebody, really help them save their save their lives, and then someone else comes up to mow. Endless, just like working as a nurse or a doctor or any other caring profession. I don't know how schoolteachers do it. You manage to teach kids and they learn, and next year you've got to do it all over again with another class and another class and another class and another class and another class. Endless. If you don't know what the meaning of life truly is, and that for those of you who try meditating, I mean, please understand that the world of meditation, a world of real life, they go together. There's no difference. It's just doing the same things in two different areas. That's why I thought meditation is like I call it like the laboratory where you test things out, find what works, and you apply those skills in your ordinary daily life. Well, how many people try to meditate and they try and make peace happen rather than realize that peace is there when you stop messing around and just leave it alone and let it go. You are the one who makes all the noise. When you stop making noise. Stop changing and moving things into what you think is perfection. Shh. Then you find peace. It's always been there. You're always looking somewhere else. Anywhere else. When I can watch the breath. When I can get rid of my thoughts. When I stop my sleepiness. When I can stop this and do this and perfect it all and make it all nice. Then I can be peaceful. Know you're peaceful now. When I can get rid of the baby who's made a noise. Killed the dogs next door. When I check people, make sure they don't cough when they go into this room. You know, when I went to Singapore during the SARS crisis, they have this machine, this infrared machine, which can tell if you've got a fever. And people suggest we should get these here. And anyone who's got a high temperature, they're not allowed to come into this room because they will cough. And of course, you can't do that. If you try to do that, you're missing the whole point. Even if, you know, I'm not quite sure. I wasn't really paying attention to people. But I think when I started meditating, there was somebody snoring. As okay, snow. That's okay. That's your problem. Nothing to do with me. And I'm just being peaceful. But if you think now I wake him up, why does somebody wake them up? You know, they shouldn't allow people to snore in this place. I'm meditating because I have no snores. Who'd have a sign up there? No snoring. So should we get our meditation, please? With big pink hats and big batons and anyone who snores. Bang! They'll teach you a lesson which would be more strict. If that's controlling and you find you'll never find any peace that way. Because you'll never be able to create that type of silence in a meditation hall of 300 people, what you can find is peace in your heart. Even though you can't control the world, you can always let go. Even though you can't heal and make things absolutely perfect. You can always be kind. You be kind to this moment. You'll be kind to life and be kind to all the sounds which come into your brain. It can be kind to all the feelings which are running through your body. You'll be so kind that you open the door of your heart completely to life. He made peace with it. When you make peace, you find peace. It's beautiful stillness because you're not fighting the world. The world doesn't move. The world doesn't move. You're at peace. You stop. That's so important. The grief and loss. Confidence. Because you are losers. Eventually, you come to a point in your life when you lose everything. You are the biggest loser. That's the TV program, isn't it? The biggest loser. You know who the biggest losers are? The people who die. You one day will be the biggest loser. When you breathe your last. When you lose everything. You lose your family. You lose your home. You lose your car. You lose your cash. You lose all the fat in your body. When you're cremated, it all goes up in smoke. If you get buried, the worms eat it. You lose everything. So the biggest loser in my book are the people who are at the funeral parlours right now. How can you lose everything and be just so happy, or rather so at peace? If you can do this now, in this life, to find that place of silence and stillness where nothing moves. The beautiful English forest in the deepest of winters. When nothing moves. Because even the animals are sleeping. And all the human beings are still asleep as well. And you go out there alone, and you stop crunching the snow, and you stand still for a moment. You let go of the whole world and everything stops. You know what I mean by that? And you can do that the time when you breathe your last. You're like in a place. The forest. Where everything stops and sleeps, where nothing moves and neither do you. If you don't move, you don't get reborn. The end of this wheel of rebirth. But if you move even a little bit, then the whole thing starts all over again. You have to learn how to be still. Stillness. You know that wonderful face? The one phrase in the Christian Bible which I think joins it up with Buddhism. It's in the Psalms. You know, I make you menocal. I love actually finding things from different religions, though, the wise teachings, to see that if you look deeply, put all the rubbish aside. But there are sometimes great sayings be still, it said, and know that thou art God. What would that mean? God is like not a being, but the highest brilliant, beautiful principle. Be still and know that you are at peace. Real peace. Full peace. Ultimate peace. Peace is the highest happiness. And if the highest happiness. The people won't give it a name. God. Not a being. Not a person. A principle, the highest happiness. If peace is the highest happiness. Then maybe that's what that phrase actually means. Be still and know that that's the highest happiness. But of course, that stillness as I mention. Most importantly, you use that as a place to stop while you're still alive. As a place where you get your power and energy from too many people, solve their problems or try to solve their problems. Thinking too much, worrying too much. If you've got a big problem at work, or in your life, or in your health and you go thinking about it, I've got cancer. I shouldn't have cancer, I've got cancer. What am I gonna do about this cancer? I'm going to fight it. But I shouldn't find that's too aggressive, I guess. Maybe stressed out more and more. How many times have you lost sleep? Thinking about your problems? Have you ever found answers? So stinky. Which is why in stillness you find wisdom, not through thinking. People suddenly mention this. You think about something like a satellite which circles the earth but never actually touches the earth. It's about around something. It never actually goes directly to the point of thinking. It just goes round and round and round. It never actually gets the heart of things to get. The hard things have to be still and experience and be there. Which is why when you talk to one another, how many people know how to listen? How many people have communication problems? How many people in your relationship, in your home? They just don't listen to you, do they? And you don't listen to them as well because you don't know how to listen. If you want to listen to someone, you got to be still. So no mind doesn't move. It doesn't think it isn't. Try to remember what they're saying. Have this wonderful thing I call total listening. When someone is in front of you, you allow what they say. To be completely absorbed. And you don't have, like, a counter conversation going on in your head, which is why many people don't listen. Your wife might be saying something and you're thinking, here she goes again. How many times do I have to hear this? That she is wrong? This is not what happens. As soon as I get a chance, I'm going to tell her something else. A lot of times when one person is talking, the other one is thinking there's no communication happens to totally listen. When someone is talking to you, you completely are quiet inside. Just like you were to say. Totally aware and listening. You're picking up things. It's a silence of the mind is stillness. You know many people who learn this technique of total listening when they are still at school have a great time getting top grades. It's amazing why people don't teach their kids this. When that teacher is talking to you. Shut up. Listen, with everything you've got. So you have no thoughts inside. But you're just like a dry sponge who just soaks everything in again, you know, because I know my past lives and stuff. And obviously a monk in previous lives. That's one of the reasons I did well at school, had incredible memory, and the reason was because I now knew how to listen even as a young boy, so that we get exams. Come along. And you got a question there. Do you remember if and when the teacher told you that? He got a clear acceptance of what's being said. Because when they're saying you're not thinking, you're silent inside. Imagine if you do that with your partner. You'll be able to understand what your partner is saying, where they're coming from. Your ability to communicate will be increased enormously for the happiness of your relationship. If you're in business, well know everyone's got a job. You'll be able to listen to your suppliers, to your clients, to your bosses, to the people who work for you. You'll be able to listen to them, feel them, understand them, because you can listen in silence. Not only that, but silence gives you power. There's one thing which is a basic teaching of meditation. If you want to have a healthy body, you have to exercise it. But if you want to have a healthy mind or other powerful mind, you have to learn how to keep it still. The more still you are, the more power you feel inside. This is a great, wonderful thing. Meditation. Whenever I get tired, if I have the chance. That's why today I've started a new regime. From 6 to 7. I'm not going out to talk to anybody. I'm going my room to meditate because that gives me more power, more energy. So when I give a talk to all these people who listen to this on the internet, you get a far better talk because you get I got an energy source. I love getting into this. And he said, I've been meditating for such a long time now. I know how to find energy when you're really, really tired. But the last time I did that over in Singapore, when was that? January or something? I forget now when we're doing this concert over there was in January and had this double concert, which I don't sing or anything. I'm very compassionate. If I tried to sing, that would be so, so cool to other people listening. So instead of doing that, I just would come on the stage just to say a few stories, acting as myself. Remember, this had these two plays. After one play, I just was so tired. I think I had a headache and everyone else was going to get their lunch. And I looked around this theatre in the Raffles Hotel in Singapore for a nice, quiet place was one of these emergency exits, and the exit was flopped on one side, so it was like a dead end. It was great. I closed the door. It's like a little cave in the theatre, in a Raffles hotel sent to a Singapore. And I just sat there, sat there just for maybe about half an hour. And all your tiredness disappears. Okay. The energy coming up is full of this power of stillness. You can only do this when you're still. You stop thinking you're at peace. And peace is like I tried to evoke in the great cathedrals. When nothing moves in the middle of the Australian bush, where it's not a rustle, no sound of a bird or any living being is silent, deep silence. Or you can access it in meditation that enlivens you, inspires you. The sacred silence gives you power, which means that whatever you do in life, you can be incredibly effective and successful because you've got the power and you can see deeply because you're an awareness. Your mind is strong and empowered. Of course, you can actually find solutions to problems. You can see the way through things because you can see more deeply in other people. Your mind is empowered. You know what most of our minds are like. It is so worn out, so tired. Why? Because you been trying to solve problems by thinking too much. You've been losing sleep, worrying so much. You know you've got things to worry about. These are problems. But it's the way you find solutions. That's the problem. You're not finding solutions in a wise way. Instead of thinking about it, we sit still. It's a no solution. It's not a problem. Shut up. Stop worrying. Be still with a powerful mind. Then you can find the solutions. That's why there is. Notice that this peace is the highest happiness. But the peace is also the solution. The solution to the problems of AI. That's why peace is the highest happiness. And why there's a huge difference between peace and happiness. Happiness comes and goes, but peace is always there for you to turn to at any moment in your life. Especially your last moment. If you want to become enlightened and I'll get reborn into this world again. Learn what peace truly is. Learn how to be still so you can stop once and for all. The movement of the wheel called life and death. Da da da. That's the talk. So I hope you enjoyed the talk on the power of peace. Okay. Now, is anyone got any comments, questions or complaints about tonight's talk? Well that's quick. Yeah. Off you go. Huh? Okay. If pain is such a great thing and so much wisdom comes from pain, why do Buddhists strive to get rid of pain? If any Buddhist tries to get rid of pain, they're a very stupid Buddhist. They find the pain will increase. Ah, okay. The four noble truths. You don't strive to let go of pain, so you don't strive to get rid of pain. You let go of striving. You let go of craving. And a wonderful thing happens when the craving disappears. Pain is. Happiness is. Suffering is. But underneath it all is peace. Peace is different than happiness and suffering. Peace is when you let go of happiness and suffering and you allow it to be. You make peace with suffering. You make peace with happiness. And the problem is God. So striving to get rid of suffering, that just makes you more tense. Arguing with life. Arguing with life. Just makes life a problem. As such, it was a joke, which I meant to say today. Today's real joke about arguing about this man. He was, ah, 90 years of age on his birthday, still very fit and healthy. And they was interviewed in the in the newspapers 90 years of age. And you're still fit and healthy. What's the secret of your fitness and health and long life? He said, because I never argued with anyone all my life. And the interviewer said, that can't be right. And he said, ah, I think I agree with you. Okay, that's a joke for today. So I thought if I answered your question, could you ask the very deep question? So maybe, you know, that's a whole talk for another time. But if you want to come up and ask, is that okay for for tonight? Yeah. Okay. Any other question anyone has to ask. Yeah. Okay. Right. Yeah. Yep. How does that fit with commies? Say that sometimes when things go wrong in life, instead of thinking, oh, it's my fault. Why did this happen to me? And beating yourself up about it? Uh, what? How does that fit in with, like, the law of karma? And actually, it's indeed. As long as actually this law of karma is an interesting thing. But as long as you think that there's a self in here which is responsible for all these things, you actually make more calm or all over again. There is something called the end of karma. Now the ending of all karma, of all this, this doing and being responsible for things. Because sometimes, no, what it is, it's that calm. You make good karma, you make bad karma. There's no human being in this whole world. You know, it just makes good karma. They will make some bad karma. I do too. Dalai Lama. He makes bad karma too. Sometimes. But sometimes this good common bad karma business. Can we end all of this karma business? You can. When you have this idea that you're in control of things, that you're the creator and maker. Then you're caught in karma. And that's actually is a wonderful way of looking at life. It makes for as many things. But there's also the end of karma. And that's when you completely let go, when you disappear and you start fighting the world. Then you don't make harm anymore. That's where the buck stops. Otherwise, the buck keeps on going round and round. Yeah, for most people, karma is. Karma is just explains the happiness and suffering of life. This is going that one step beyond the happiness and suffering. The ending of karma by the ending of the self, which makes a karma. The letting go of the controller disappearing. That's what happens when you're in the silence. You disappear in the silence. In the middle of the bush. A wonderful feeling when it's so silent. When nothing moves, you also vanish. That's why I like one. With all things. Is not you anymore. You merged the end of you. And that's the end of karma and the end of suffering. Peace at last. You are the one who makes a noise. Da da da. Okay, thank you for those questions. And those answers which will not answer your question. Because only when you touch, touch the peace and stillness, then the question becomes answered. A lot of respect for the wonderful questions I answered on that sort of level. Okay, so thank you for listening to this evening's talk. There's another one coming next week. Until you become enlightened and where you don't have to come again, you can stay at home and enjoy yourself. But those of you are not inclined. Another talk. Another time next week. Oh come on, my son would buy a book on a one dog RV watching me. So I can't buy a lot out of all the money. Her son. So Patti Panova, a lot of like a circle. Circle of mommy.